THE "SMASH" REPORT: Season Two, Episodes 16-17, or "Give 'Em That Big Finish"

By Ben Rimalower
28 May 2013

Christian Borle and Luke Macfarlane

Photo by Will Hart/NBC

Playbill's weekly recap, with notes and comment, of the latest episode of the NBC musical drama series "Smash," about the dreamers behind Broadway musicals. Here's a look at the May 26 finale episodes, "The Nominations" and "The Tonys."

The Outer Critics Circle Nominations: The Beginning of the End. Hit List has 11 nominations to Bombshell's 10. Sign of things to come?

Tom is sweating out every moment of this awards season—and he's got to win this Outer Critics Circle Award to shore up his chances for a Tony nomination, without which he may never direct again. He's so distracted that even while watching fellow nominated musical The Gathering Storm, he can't stop checking his phone every 15 seconds to see if he won the Outer Critics Circle Award. The good news is, he won. The bad news is, he's a real nuisance to the gentleman sitting behind him, who happens to be a Tony nominator, and reportedly gay-and-closeted Hollywood hunk Patrick Dillon (played by Luke Macfarlane). Tom tries to make it up to him by sending him a token bottle of wine, but then finds out that's technically attempting to bribe his way to a Tony–and could really mess up his chances–so he goes to Patrick Dillon's apartment building to intercept the delivery. He almost succeeds, but winds up in a tug-of-war with Patrick over the wine bottle, which ends in red wine all over the place... including Patrick's designer clothes. Ouch. Now, about that Tony...

Meanwhile, Julia's distracted getting divorce advice from Eileen and decides to use Eileen's lawyer, which pisses off her soon-to-be ex, Frank, so much so that he says he's gonna take her for everything she's worth. This was not a no-fault divorce! The first thing Julia has to do for the legal battle is write a letter to Frank telling the story of her extra-marital relationship with Michael Swift. So, Julia's got her hands full!

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Ivy would be feeling all right if not for the morning sickness, which is making her late for her entrances - she almost misses curtain call one night. Sam and the gang are worried about her, some wondering if she's using again. If they only knew! She leaves it open with her doctor as to what she will decide to do about the pregnancy. She wants to talk to Derek, but he keeps blowing her off. Unfortunately, Ivy is caught in this dark state by some fans outside the theatre, and without thinking it through, makes an unfortunate offhand remark about Hit List only being on Broadway because Kyle died. This gets captured on video and reaches everyone, causing—to say the least—much bad feeling. She does manage to tell Sam what's really going on with her, so at least she has one friend on her side.